


Decent Stonework

by bunn



Series: Undying Lands [2]
Category: The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: East of the Sun, Eglarest, Fourth Age, Gen, Gentle chatting, Pubs of Arda, West of the Moon, elvish politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 02:43:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18562318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunn/pseuds/bunn
Summary: Gimli, Legolas and Bilbo meet in Eglarest, in Beleriand risen, where they have a drink.





	Decent Stonework

Gimli had a pint of beer, Legolas, a cup of wine, and Bilbo, though never a great drinker, had given in to their persuasion and accepted the half-pint that Gimli had placed firmly on the low wall in front of him.

Overhead, gulls were crying against the blue, and out in the west beyond the sea below them, the great purple-grey mass of Aman loomed against the evening sky.  In the bay below, ships were anchored across the bay like great birds at rest; Teleri ships, swift and pale, and a handful of the larger Noldor galleons, built more for stability than speed.

“So what do you think of it, this new Beleriand of the Elves?” Bilbo said, after a while, puffing a smoke-ring out over the cliff.

“A good deal pleasanter now it’s settled down and has trees and streams and birds,” Legolas said.  “When it was just a great lump of grey rock hunched above the ocean, it was sadly forlorn.”

Gimli looked around at the fair houses of rebuilt Eglarest, and frowned, stroking his beard. “Not too bad,” he allowed, having considered the question.  “These Noldor can work stone, whatever else may be said of them.”

“Oh, come now, Gimli,” Legolas laughed.  “I’m not going to fall for that now; I know you far too well. A place is its people, not just its stonework, didn’t you say that to me more than once in Aglarond?”

“Hmph,” Gimli said, and sipped his beer. “Very well then, this is a fair-built town in a fair land. But then it should be, since the lord Felagund helped in the shaping of it. You can see his hand in the walls, and those who taught him, too. Some very old ideas there that dwarves of yore created long ago. I had no notion of just how old they were before I spoke with Felagund himself. On yonder archway, for example...”

Bilbo interrupted with a laugh.  “Dwarves tongues run on when talking of their craft, your father used to say, and apparently they run on when talking of the craft of Felagund of Nargothrond too!  But Legolas asked what you thought of the people, and I’m rather curious about that myself.”

Gimli raised a hand. “I am coming to my point!  In Middle-earth, it seemed that Elves were Elves wherever you found them.  There were the Elves of the West, fell, ancient and few, and then... the rest.” He shot Legolas a teasing sideways look. “The Elves of the woods. More dangerous and less wise."

Legolas leant back in his seat and put his feet up on the wall. “If the Elves of the Wood are more dangerous and less wise,” he said, laughing, “what shall be said of their friends?  Surely, they must be less wise still?”

Gimli gave a snort of laughter. “Some of your kinsmen might say so.”

Legolas looked suddenly very serious. “I hope nobody _has_ been been unwise enough to say so?”

But Gimli shook his head, smiling. “Stand down Legolas! No need to make a feud of it.  Nobody has said anything that a rather deaf old Dwarf could hear, though I must say a few of them have made faces that make a pretty picture. But it’s been a joy to see you meet all your kin who had passed beyond the Sea, even if they don’t entirely approve of me; I didn’t expect them to.  I’m too old to be worrying about the approval of Elves.”

“And so am I,” Bilbo said and raised his cup to Gimli.

Legolas looked from one to the other and smiled. “My ancient friends.  I feel as young as a new leaf here, most of the time, and then I hear you two talking about something that happened only two hundred years ago, as if it were the dawn of Time, and there! I feel the many fallings of the leaves weigh upon me again, and remember that, after all,  I am not a child. Not even here in the West beyond West where the ancient dead walk among the living, and can barely be told apart from them.”

“Where the ancient dead walk among the living,” Bilbo repeated meditatively.  “I suppose that’s one way of putting it, though it makes it sound rather as though there were a lot of skeletons tottering about the place, dropping toes and fingers.”

“Which they certainly are not,” Gimli said. “But that is what I think of this new land of Elves, since I am not permitted to speak of the stonework. I came from a land where the Elves are few and fewer, and of only two kinds, so far as an outsider can tell.  And here we are in the lands West of West where there are Elves of every possible sort, and most of them have some complex ancient argument with half the others, and with the Valar too. It’s a good thing I have resolved not to worry too much about what any of them think, for I shall never keep all their long years of Elvish arguments straight.”

“It seems a near-hopeless task,” Bilbo agreed. “Though I haven’t quite given up on it yet.  I can’t help hoping that if I take enough notes, eventually I will get a proper hold on them all.  Though, I admit, the notes are burgeoning somewhat. I’m wondering if there’s any chance of persuading Elrond to give me a hand setting them in order, in fact.  It seems a terrible cheek to ask him, but I’ve never been good at keeping things put away neatly. ”

Legolas, relaxed again, sipped his wine and laughed, watching the flight of a white gull curving out over the sparkling Sea.  “Why not ask? He can only say no, and he is a great lore-master, after all. But I don’t think it’s worth the trouble of keeping track of the feuds of Elves, unless it amuses you to do it.  I don’t, and I am one of them.”

“You don’t keep track of the disputes between the peoples of the Elves?”  Gimli frowned. “But your father’s a king! Surely you must know all his kin and their quarrels, whether in the Greenwood or here beyond the Sea?”

Legolas shook his head. “No. If they greet me like kin, I’ve resolved I’ll call them kin.  I have no idea who some of them are, but it doesn’t matter. I shall sing with joy with those who wish it, and not trouble myself with old griefs and grudges. I had only one Enemy.  He fell when the Ring went into the Fire, and now is the time for rest and song, not argument.”

“Whimsical Elf!” Gimli said and took a long pull of his beer.

“Whimsical!  I hope so!” Legolas exclaimed.  “For that is only to say: one who wanders without care, and why would one take on cares for no good reason?  But here West of the Sea is the land of my people forever; so say the songs, and they do not speak of two lands here, but one. Whether my kin live in Doriath reborn, or the willow-meads of Tasarinan in Beleriand Risen, or the gardens of Lórien or the forests of Oromë, or in Alqualondë, or even in Tirion: well. They are still all Elves, whether High, Grey, Green, Light or Deep.”

“Maybe not one of the least wise, after all then,” Gimli said with a smile, and took another swig of beer.  


End file.
